Patent GB-661113-A (GB)
Title: Apparatus for vacuumizing, gassing and closing containers
IPC: B65B31/02
Filed: 1948-09-06
Abstract: 661,113. Food &c. preserving. CONTINENTAL CAN CO., Inc. Sept. 6, 1948 [Sept. 15, 1947], No. 23461/48. Class 49. An apparatus for vacuumizing and closing, or vacuumizing, gassing and closing, filled containers, especially cans of pulverulent material such as coffee on which air has a deleterious effect, comprises a casing, a rotor therein having peripheral pockets for the containers, a stator portion in the casing communicating with a source of vacuum through a chamber and having an arc of orifices opening into the chamber, a portion rotatable with the rotor having ports of uniform size disposed to traverse the arc of orifices serially and each being connected with a rotor pocket, the o:rifices of the arc being progressively and gradually increased in size in the direction of rotation of the rotor to permit the velocity of outrushing air to increase as the density of air in a container and a pocket therefor decreases, while carrying out the vacuumizing of each container at a rate just less than that which would be effective to lift material from the container, a chamber communicating with a source of vacuum, or of a gas which does not adversely affect the material in the containers, a rotary turret in this chamber having pockets for the containers, means in this chamber for closing the containers, means for transferring containers from the rotor pockets to the pockets in the rotary turret, means for transferring closed containers from the turret pockets back into the rotor pockets, and means for feeding the closed containers out of the rotor pockets. With the embodiment of the drawings, Figs. 1 and 2, filled open containers are conveyed by a transfer star 73 into pockets 64 of a rotor 47 within an apparatus A and there subjected to vacuum, and transferred by a transfer star 78 to an apparatus B and there closed; the closed containers are retransferred by a transfer star 81 into the apparatus A, discharged therefrom by a transfer star 86, and fed away at H. The rotor 47 is equipped with a plate 98 having ports 100, Fig. 13, arranged concentrically, one port for each of the pockets 64. A plate 107 having two sections of concentric rows of staggered orifices 135, Fig. 13, of progressively increasing diameter rests in sealed contact on the plate 98. Each port 100 communicates over two orifice areas. One section of the orifices is in communication with a low vacuum (e.g. a pressure of 1-3 in. of mercury) chamber 110, the other section with a high vacuum (e.g. a pressure of 0.2 in. of mercury) chamber 112. The sections are traversed successively by the rotor ports 100, Fig. 13. For merely vacuumizing and closing the containers, the interior of the closing apparatus B is evacuated by the source of high vacuum for the apparatus A; when it is desired to place in the containers a gas, e.g. nitrogen, which does not adversely affect the material in the containers, the apparatus B is shut off from the vacuum source and the gas is introduced by a duct 133, Fig. 2, to each pocket 64 before it enters into communication with the interior of the closing apparatus B.